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Around The World (Wide Web): Draft, Phil, Kupchak-Dwight, D’Antoni

From Elizabeth Benson, Lakers Nation: In Lakers Nation’s latest edition of our roundtable, we thought it would be only suiting to tackle the subject that every Laker fan is talking about, which of course surrounds the future of Dwight Howard. While we can only wait for free agency to officially kickoff, which is on July 1, the rumor mill regarding Dwight’s future is only just starting to heat up. So, where do some of Lakers Nation writers think Dwight Howard will sign this off-season? Let’s find out.

From Kurt Helin, Pro Basketball Talk: Who do you want to believe? Monday came a report from the very reliable Dave McMenamin at ESPNLosAngeles.com that in his exit interview Dwight Howard expressed frustration with coach Mike D’Antoni to GM Mitch Kupchak. Which isn’t hard to believe if you watched the Lakers at all this year. But when Kevin Ding of the Orange County Register called Kupchak he denied they even discussed that (via Sulia). “Kupchak said he didn’t want any D’Antoni talk from Dwight anyway given Mitch’s insistence that Lakers won’t have any player dictate the coaching situation. To be honest with you, I wouldn’t let it go there anyway,” he said…. “I’m not saying they don’t have differences like with any coach or any player. I don’t think it’s anything that goes beyond.”

From Eric Pincus, LA Times: Lakers Coach Mike D’Antoni will not return to Team USA as an assistant for Mike Krzyzewski, at least according to Marc Berman of the New York Post. Krzyzewski is expected to be officially announced as the U.S. Olympic coach Thursday, but D’Antoni turned down an offer to return as an assistant because “he didn’t want to make another four-year commitment because of his family.” D’Antoni has worked with Team USA since 2006, helping the squad win two gold medals. Additionally, Lakers assistant coach Steve Clifford has received permission to talk with the Phoenix Suns about their head coaching vacancy, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports.

From Arash Markazi, ESPN LA: When Los Angeles Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak called Phil Jackson to tell him the Lakers were hiring Mike D’Antoni instead of him as coach, he responded the only way he knew how. “I laughed,” Jackson told ESPN’s “Mike & Mike in the Morning” show Wednesday. “It was humorous to me when Mitch said that we think that Mike is a better coach for this group of guys.”Jackson had been prepared to tell Kupchak whether he was interested in returning to the Lakers’ bench the next day, but the GM called Jackson late that Sunday night, Nov. 11, to tell him the Lakers had decided to go in another direction. Jackson said he thinks the Lakers made the decision largely based on catering to Steve Nash, their 39-year-old point guard who was limited to 50 games this season as he battled a variety of injuries.

From Ben R, Silver Screen & Roll: It’s that time again. The time when we try to maintain hope in the Lakersmanaging the draft process well despite not reaping any concrete rewards from it for years. Of the Lakers’ recent draftees, only Darius Morris holds any potential of sticking on the roster past next season and that’s only if he takes the next step in his development. Year after year, the Lakers have sacrificed their first rounders for established players such as Steve Nashand Ramon Sessions or just engaged in plain old cost cutting that has come back to bite them in the rear in the long-term. One would say that there’s no time like the present to correct this misuse of one of the fundamental resources for talent in the league, but the team only possesses their own second rounder and a late one at that at number 48 to restock the incredibly shallow farm of young talent they currently have.

Kobe Alert: Kobes was named All NBA for the 15th time. With this selection he moves into a tie for most selections all time, with Kareem Abdul Jabbar (unreal). Shaq and Malone have 14 selections. KB’s 11th first team selection brings him into a tie with Karl Malone for the most in NBA history (also unreal). KAJ, Cousy, West, MJ, Pettit, and Baylor all have 10 starting selections. It should also be noted that Kareem only had 10 first team selections, so therefore with 15 overall and 11 starting nods, Kobe owns this category, which a GOAT type accomplishment. KB was not selected to the defensive team this year, however he remains tied for 1st all time with 9 starting nods and is second only to Tim Duncan (14) in overall selections, with 12. Kobe’s selection to the starting NBA Team was a clear choice, as he piled up 521 vote points, and the next highest 2nd teamer was well behind with 306. Add all of this to the fact that he dominates the all star categories, and we can conclude that this guy is good. Platinum statue and 2 numbers on the wall. However, that is years from now. By the way it is the All NBA Team that is implied in the statement: Kobe Eats First !

Hiring MDA is not a mistake, think about it, the Orlando Magic after losing to NBA Final to Lakers, they want to get a guard who can shoot outside like Kobe, Orlando got Joe Johnson, but it did not work out well for them, in theory with Howard inside, Kobe outside this is not bad team the problem is Lakers FO continues to keep Gasol instead of having good role players. Howard is used to play P@R in Orlando, so he can do it with Nash, but during the season Silver Screen&Roll got video to show Howard did not set the right pick for Nash to run P&R, so the question is why Howard forgot to run P&R, why? Kobe said many times:” we had defense assignments, but we didn’t do it”, why? I think because Lakers are old, if you play defense then you don’t have energy to score, if Phil is the coach, can he make this Lakers team younger ? I don’t think so.

Chearn/R: Thanks – looking forward to next year’s return.
Jane: Saw your nice post about Phil in the last thread and have not forgotten you posted similar last Fall.
Michael H: I posted a Kobe Alert to get a different conversation going. Next thing you know, you mention DH and the Warriors, and he we are – back to speaking about DH and MD. So – I guess you have gotten us back on point : ) By the way, Ryan’s search of the web yielded 5 articles, 4 of which are about MD and DH, and 1 is about the second tier players. So FBG is right in sync with the world .
Darius: I agree with your two declarations and most of your subsequent conclusions from the prior thread.. A little levity. The biggest issue I see is this is like two people who on paper, are perfect according to the dating site’s computer. However they have already gone out on one date, and guess what – zero chemistry. So now we are going to try to get them out on a second date – because they are “made for each other”. This time we will pick a better restaurant, better music, and better lighting. We will tell both of them to keep an open mind and “meet in the middle”. Well – to make this work, we need to make sure that this date request is accompanied by dozens of roses and lots of jewelry, so that a first date with a new suitor does not seem so enticing. I hope someone is making sure all this happens. Trust me, when this happens at restaurants, it is usually not the menu or the lighting, rather it is the wrong person on the other side of the table.

Robert,
This isn’t a date. These men are paid big money to make the situation work. You don’t like the head coach but love the player, we get it. My point is, for Dwight, he’s going to experience this type of offense wherever he plays, he’ll need to get used to playing this way. And for D’Antoni, he needs to understand that he’s never had post players like he has with the Lakers and must do more to bend his system to incorporate that aspect of their games. He did some of that last year and the results were pretty good.

Success in this league isn’t about fully catering to what the players want. It’s about getting everyone on board with the plan and going from there. With D’Antoni, I think it took some time for him to sort out exactly what the plan should be but once he got there the results improved dramatically.

I am not opposed to D’antoni being the coach, I actually think hes a better X/O coach than Phil. My problem with D’antoni has always been the pace we play at. If the Lakers control the pace and add another defender, we should be title contenders. As for Dwight, Id love for him to come back but its not the end of the world if he does not.